Typewriters, line printers and similar printing apparatus are usually provided with ribbons which, by the action of the printing means, apply pigment to the medium on which the pigment is to be printed. Ribbons with black and red pigment have been used for a long time. Demands for the availability of printing with several colors has led to wider ribbons, where the pigments are disposed as bands along the ribbon. For printing is a given color, the ribbon is raised or lowered in relation to the printing means at the printing location. The ribbon is led from a storage region to the printing location and from there back again to the storage region with the aid of guide means for keeping the ribbon in position at right angles to its direction of travel, and guiding means for changing the direction of the ribbon. To avoid shear stresses in the transverse direction of the ribbon, the cylindrical surfaces of the guiding means engaging the ribbon must be oriented at rightangles to the plane in which the ribbon is advanced.
A known method of solving the problem mentioned is to turn the ribbon magazine with its guide and guiding means about an axis in the plane of the magazine for printing at different ribbon levels. Other ways are to guide the ribbon over a plurality of guiding rollers mounted on pivotable arms, or to form the guiding means with concave or convex contours. All these solutions result in mechanically complicated arrangements.